Story of a Girl

“I was thirteen when my dad caught me with Tommy Webber in the back of Tommy’s Buick, parked next to the old Chart House down in Montara at eleven o’clock on a Tuesday night. Tommy was seventeen and the supposed friend of my brother, Darren.
I didn’t love him.
I’m not sure I even liked him.

In a moment, Deanna Lambert’s teenage life is changed forever. Struggling to overcome the lasting repercussions and the stifling role of “school slut,” Deanna longs to escape a life defined by her past. With subtle grace, complicated wisdom, and striking emotion, Story of a Girl reminds us of our human capacity for resilience, epiphany, and redemption.”

This book literally starts with the idea that a child of 13 can consent to sex with someone who is older than they are. Consent is a hot topic of debate. What actually constitutes consent. Is consent when a younger girl is told she is pretty and now feels special and to keep that special feeling she does whatever the older boy wants? That doesn’t sound like consent to me.

Tommy is a complete skeeze. He is clearly older and taking advantage of Deanna then he brags about it at school. Why was this kid not reported? Why did everyone believe that a 13 year old would opt to have sex with someone? (Yes, I know that 13 year olds have hormones and they can be aroused, but there is a difference between feeling aroused and actively consenting to sex). Then Tommy continues to harass Deanna when they work together at the pizza place. He makes sexual advances and even tries to get her to give him a blowjob in his car again.

There is so much coverage about how Deanna is a “slut” and clearly “easy”, but there is no coverage on how Tommy is viewed. The book leads the reader to believe that a person that I could easily classify as a rapist has no repercussions. While this is sadly accurate for the rape culture we live in, it is not what I want to tell the young girls who are reading this book.

The book pretty much tells the story of how this 13 year old girl who has grown up a bit has managed to survive being the school slut after being raped. Spoiler alert: She forgives her rapist, the end.